[Sidenote:  Westward movement of population.] The westward movement of population in the United States has for the most part followed the parallels of latitude.  Thus Virginians and North Carolinians, crossing the Alleghanies, settled Kentucky and Tennessee; thus people from New England filled up the central and northern parts of New York, and passed on into Michigan and Wisconsin; thus Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois received many settlers from New York and Pennsylvania.  In the early times when Kentucky was settled, the pioneer would select a piece of land wherever he liked, and after having a rude survey made, and the limits marked by “blazing” the trees with a hatchet, the survey would be put on record in the state land-office.  So little care was taken that half a dozen patents would sometimes be given for the same tract.  Pieces of land, of all shapes and sizes, lay between the patents....  Such a system naturally begat no end of litigation, and there remain in Kentucky curious vestiges of it to this day. [5]

[Footnote 5:  Hinsdale, Old Northwest, p. 261.]

[Sidenote:  Method of surveying the public lands.] [Sidenote:  Origins of Western townships.] In order to avoid such confusion in the settlement of the territory north of the Ohio river, Congress passed the land-ordinance of 1785, which was based chiefly upon the suggestions of Thomas Jefferson, and laid the foundation of our simple and excellent system for surveying national lands.  According to this system as gradually perfected, the government surveyors first mark out a north and south line which is called the principal meridian.  Twenty-four such meridians have been established.  The first was the dividing line between Ohio and Indiana; the last one runs through Oregon a little to the west of Portland.  On each side of the principal meridian there are marked off subordinate meridians called range [6] Then a true parallel of latitude is drawn, crossing these meridians at right angles.  It is called the base line_, or standard parallel.  Eleven such base lines, for example, run across the great state of Oregon.  Finally, on each side of the base line are drawn subordinate parallels called township lines, six miles apart, and numbered north and south from their base line.  By these range lines and township lines the whole land is thus divided into townships just six miles square, and the townships are all numbered.  Take, for example, the township of Deerfield in Michigan.  That is the fourth township north of the base line, and it is in the fifth range east of the first principal meridian.  It would be called township number 4 north range 5 east, and was so called before it was settled and received a name.  Evidently one must go 24 miles from the principal meridian, or 18 miles from the base line, in order to enter this township.  It is all as simple as the numbering of streets in Philadelphia.[7]